This is the scale that was used to judge the relative impact of the system goals on students, users, and decision makers.
HIGH |
LOW |
|||
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
The numbers in the table are the averages of nine committee members' ratings in each of the three categories. The values in the Rank column indicate how the goals sort if the averages are simply added together--15 is assigned to the highest weighted item. These values range from 8.0 to 13.8.
Direct benefit to students |
Direct benefit to system users |
Direct benefit to decision makers |
Rank | |
| Automate work flow | 2.8 | 5.0 | 2.1 | 4 |
| Create centrally managed set of rules | 2.4 | 4.9 | 3.8 | 9 |
| Eliminate double data entry points | 2.3 | 5.0 | 1.6 | 2 |
| Eliminate manual data entry | 1.6 | 5.0 | 1.4 | 1 |
| Eliminate need for ancillary databases | 1.0 | 4.0 | 4.7 | 3 |
| Enhance flexibility of system and ease of development | 2.0 | 4.9 | 3.9 | 7 |
| Enhance university administrative/business functions | 1.9 | 3.4 | 4.9 | 5 |
| Enhance user access to data | 2.9 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 13 |
| Enhance user access to system | 3.0 | 4.8 | 3.9 | 12 |
| Enhance user friendliness | 4.0 | 4.9 | 3.8 | 14 |
| Enhance user skills | 2.6 | 5.0 | 3.4 | 8 |
| Ensure data integrity | 4.1 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 15 |
| Provide easy student access to personal information | 5.0 | 3.7 | 2.5 | 10 |
| Provide point-of-contact data entry and decision making capability | 3.6 | 4.4 | 3.4 | 11 |
| Reduce paper handling | 3.3 | 4.5 | 2.4 | 6 |
While the values shown should be useful to ranking various proposals, they do not tell the whole story. It is clear that there are dependencies that are not captured by the numbers. Data integrity, for example, depends on a lot of things in the list. The following figure is one representation of these dependencies. Read the arrows in the diagram as "If...then...." statements. For example, "If you enhance user access to data, then you eliminate the need for ancillary databases." And, "If you eliminate the need for ancillary databases, you eliminate double data entry points." And so on through the diagram.
The gray boxes represent initiatives for which SISMAC seem to be emerging from our discussions of the proposals that have been submitted as specific things that can be done to meet the system goals.